I'm pretty sure most people have seen this (well, at least those interested in the future of Microsoft for whatever reason) back awhile ago when people were discussing it more, but this is a somewhat newish build, so I decided to give people a chance to see what MS was up to if they didn't know. (education typically doesn't hurt anything)
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_4015.aspSummary of article:
New 'Avalon' graphics library to replace GDI\GDI+.
More DirectX Integration.
Parental Controls.
Streamlined Setup.
A welcome screen that looks somewhat MACish.
A ton of crap for the new sidebar.
interesting quotes:
"As expected, the Longhorn shell is still a disaster. After turning off Windows Future Storage (WinFS) to speed things up, I was still astonished by how poorly the system performed."
"you might recall that many people are wondering why IE development has virtually stopped. This might be because IE, the product, is indeed going away and that
Longhorn users will simply browse the Web using the Windows shell." (All of the alternative browser users will have nowhere to hide from MSIE now, period. That includes me.)
"So there you go, another slow, buggy, crash-infected Longhorn alpha build, but one which includes a few new pieces of interesting functionality. As ever, this build is not for day-to-day use, and it's certainly not a perfect indication of what's coming down the road. But in these beta-starved times before the official Longhorn Beta Program kicks in, it's better than nothing. We should get more Longhorn information next week at WinHEC, and then again at the TechEd and PDC shows later in the year. Beta 1 is still expected in October, with the final release set for late 2004 or early 2005, depending on who you ask."
And for those of you who just want to see a crash screenshot (play around with explorer.exe enough in any windows and you'll get one, same old same old)
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/4015_151.pngAnd as a side note unrelated to the topic:
KNOPPIX LOCKED UP WHEN I WAS POSTING SOMETHING.
No operating system is perfect. Some are
better than others, but none are perfect.